Obama Scolds Big Tobacco – How Ironic


In what has to be the largest show of chutzpah yet, President Barack Obama had some “less than pleasant” words for cigarette makers. He spoke in a new White House web video, posted on the White House’s Web site Thursday, November 17, 2011, to coincide with Thursday’s 36th “Great American Smokeout” by the American Cancer Society. Said Obama on the video, “Some tobacco companies are fighting new cigarette warning labels because they don’t want to be honest about the consequences.” He says the country has made progress in reducing the number of Americans who smoke, but added that 46 million are still addicted.

“The fact is, quitting smoking is hard,” he said. “Believe me, I know.” Obama has fought the habit by chewing nicotine gum, and his last medical report, issued October 31, 2011, said he was tobacco-free.

Companies, led by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Lorillard Tobacco Co., sued the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in August, 2011, to block the labels, arguing the labels promote anti-smoking advocacy. A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in November, 2011, blocking forcing tobacco companies next year to put graphic images on their cigarette packages.

In the video, the Obama directs viewers to the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) website, which has links to resources that can help smokers quit and highlights government efforts to prevent young people from smoking.

BTW, this article (and its author) is neither a proponent or opponent of smoking. Its sole purpose is to highlight what a flip-flopper Obama has become.

But that’s just my opinion.

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Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

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One Comment

  1. I have been on top of this since it began. I have sent emails to my Congressman and Senator telling them that this was nothing but an example of the Nanny State trying to interfer with the normal business of a privately owned company’s packaging process, and the image of that companies product that they want on their package. The government does not have the authority or the right to tell you what you have to put on a package that could cause your company to loose business just because the Nanny State doesn’t like your product. That the government believes that there is some indirect affect on health problems that a person may have from consuming that companies products. If that is the case and the user’s death that the government is concerned about, then they need to require that auto makers place a big decal on the side of cars and trucks informing the consumer that this product can cause horrible injury, dismemberment, and death by placing a big picture of a wreak between two cars with people’s brains hanging out of their skulls after a crash, kids heads all bashed in from hitting the windows, or broken bodies from being thrown from the car during a crash. Just the most horrible pictures you could find of wreaks between cars. Especially since 40,000 people are killed every year by car and truck wreaks. Oh, but we wouldn’t want that because it might cause union workers to loose their jobs if the car company had to close it’s doors because people aren’t buying these dangerous cars and trucks. And let’s have pictures printed on the sides of strawberry jam jars of kids all swollen up and eyes all red, with terrible rashes with red bumps all over their bodies from alergic reaction to that private companies dangerous product that could cause people to become debilitated from consuming that privately owned companies product.

    Or let’s see horrible pictures of wreaks that are caused by people drinking alcohol beverages made from liquar product from privately owned companies. Do you think you’d buy a bottle of whiskey if it had a picture of some teenagers in a wreak with their brains all hanging out and faces all smashed in from hitting the steering wheel, with blood all over the place, with girls in the back seat all smashed up and blood in their hair and all. I wouldn’t.

    But no, we don’t have laws like that because that assumes that the purchaser of a privately owned companie’s product is irresponsible and would use that product to excess and allow themselves to cause a wreak, or cause themselves to use a tobacco product to excess where they would contract lung cancer or something else horrible. The government wants Tobacco Companies to put pictures of a pair of rotten lungs all black and big tumor’s sticking out and stuff on every pack of cigarettes. How many people do you think would want to carry a pack of cigarettes around with them with a picture like that on it? I wouldn’t. Would it make me self consciencous? Yeah, probably. But so would that big picture of a terrible wreak on the side of my car to.

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